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Definition: standards

Standards make up the most important issue in the computer field. As an unregulated industry, we have wound up with thousands of data formats and languages, but few standards that are universally used. This subject is as heated as politics and religion to vendors and industry planners. In order to truly understand this industry, it is essential to understand the categories for which standards are created.

No matter how much the industry talks about compatibility, new formats and languages appear routinely. The standards makers are always trying to cast a standard in concrete, while the innovators are trying to create a new one. Even when standards are created, they are violated as soon as one vendor adds a proprietary extension.

The Future
After 60 some years of computing, we have managed to create thousands of languages, formats and interfaces. While many become bona fide standards endorsed by recognized standards organizations such as ANSI and the IEEE, some of the most widely used are de facto standards. Intel and Microsoft products are the most obvious examples.

Although the Internet has helped immensely by creating global standards, we have already gone through several versions of software for rendering Web pages. Email demands new standards because 90% of it is spam.

As we forge ahead, there is a point where we can no longer cling to the old designs for compatibility. At that time, the new has to break from the past. The previous infrastructure only holds us back, no different than constructing a new building on top of a weak foundation. It seems to be the way of things. See standards bodies.

Standards Categories

These are the major categories of electronic systems that require standards. Developing information systems in today's environment often seems like the Tower of Babel.